Medical Neuroscience explores the functional organization and neurophysiology of the human central nervous system, while providing a neurobiological framework for understanding human behavior. In this course, you will discover the organization of the neural systems in the brain and spinal cord that mediate sensation, motivate bodily action, and integrate sensorimotor signals with memory, emotion and related faculties of cognition. The overall goal of this course is to provide the foundation for understanding the impairments of sensation, action and cognition that accompany injury, disease or dysfunction in the central nervous system. The course will build upon knowledge acquired through prior studies of cell and molecular biology, general physiology and human anatomy, as we focus primarily on the central nervous system.
This online course is designed to include all of the core concepts in neurophysiology and clinical neuroanatomy that would be presented in most first-year neuroscience courses in schools of medicine. However, there are some topics (e.g., biological psychiatry) and several learning experiences (e.g., hands-on brain dissection) that we provide in the corresponding course offered in the Duke University School of Medicine on campus that we are not attempting to reproduce in Medical Neuroscience online. Nevertheless, our aim is to faithfully present in scope and rigor a medical school caliber course experience.
This course comprises six units of content organized into 12 weeks, with an additional week for a comprehensive final exam:
- Unit 1 Neuroanatomy (weeks 1-2). This unit covers the surface anatomy of the human brain, its internal structure, and the overall organization of sensory and motor systems in the brainstem and spinal cord.
- Unit 2 Neural signaling (weeks 3-4). This unit addresses the fundamental mechanisms of neuronal excitability, signal generation and propagation, synaptic transmission, post synaptic mechanisms of signal integration, and neural plasticity.
- Unit 3 Sensory systems (weeks 5-7). Here, you will learn the overall organization and function of the sensory systems that contribute to our sense of self relative to the world around us: somatic sensory systems, proprioception, vision, audition, and balance senses.
- Unit 4 Motor systems (weeks 8-9). In this unit, we will examine the organization and function of the brain and spinal mechanisms that govern bodily movement.
- Unit 5 Brain Development (week 10). Next, we turn our attention to the neurobiological mechanisms for building the nervous system in embryonic development and in early postnatal life; we will also consider how the brain changes across the lifespan.
- Unit 6 Cognition (weeks 11-12). The course concludes with a survey of the association systems of the cerebral hemispheres, with an emphasis on cortical networks that integrate perception, memory and emotion in organizing behavior and planning for the future; we will also consider brain systems for maintaining homeostasis and regulating brain state.

Aus der Unterrichtseinheit

Sensory Systems: General Principles and Somatic Sensation

We have reached a significant juncture in Medical Neuroscience as we turn our attention to the organization and function of the sensory systems. We will begin our studies with the somatic sensory systems, which includes subsystems for mechanical sensation and pain/temperature sensation. But before we get there, it is worth considering first some organizing principles that will set the stage for studies of somatic sensation and all the other sensory systems of the body.

Treffen Sie die Kursleiter

Leonard E. White, Ph.D.

Associate ProfessorDepartment of Neurology, Department of Neurobiology, Duke University School of Medicine; Department of Psychology & Neuroscience, Trinity College of Arts & Sciences; Director of Education, Duke Institute for Brain Sciences; Duke University

Well to get started in Sylvius, I'm going to open the brain stem cross-sectional

atlas, and select all structures. And let's begin at the lumbar level of the

spinal chord. So I've just selected the lumbar chord.

And what I'd like to highlight for you is the dorsal column.

So here we have the dorsal column, and as I select it, the label that appears is the

gracile tract, no cuneate tract, right, because we're, we are in the lumbar cord

and we are below the level of the input from the arms, obviously.

So the only axons we find here in the dorsal column are those that are serving

mechanosensory signals from the lower body, the lower extremities primarily.

So if we now proceed to a section higher up in the spinal cord, you'll notice that

we are adding axons To the peripheral sides of this dorsal column region, so

there are some unlabeled axons that are out here laterally, so that's where we are

going to find the cuneate tract, alright, so the gracile tract medial for the lower

extremity, the cuneate tract lateral for the upper extremity.

So these are elements of our dorsal column medial lemniscal system.

Conveying mechanosensory signals from the spinal cord, all the way on up to,

the,[INAUDIBLE] medulla. Now before we get there, let's go back

down to the, lumbar cord, and let's consider the spinocerebellar pathways.

So there may be,[INAUDIBLE] from muscle spindles, and Golgi tendon organs and the

like. Our deep[UNKNOWN] receptors entering this

dorsal[UNKNOWN] entry zone and enter, and entering the dorsal column.

But as we ascend in the dorsal column system to the thoracic cord some of

these[UNKNOWN] are going to dive into the intermediate grey matter in a region that

is on the medial side of this gray matter and right about in this area we have what

we call Clarke's nucleus so the dorsal nucleus of Clarke.

This is the origin of the axon that then sweep out and run from thoracic cord into

the serebone. In the pathway that we call the dorsal

spinocerebellar tract. So there's the dorsal spinocerebellar

tract, now an important point that I want to emphasize, the dorsal spinocerebellar

tract is on the same side of the spinal cord as the entering[UNKNOWN] fiber.

So this allows to establish an ipsilateral Input to the cerebellum from the body

concerning proprioceptive signals. Now, we've been emphasizing that in the

cerebral hemisphere, the principle is contralateral representation.

But I warned you that when it comes to the cerebellum We have a different principle.